The Fanfiction Academic Institute of Langley
by GreenCat3
Summary: Kid-tested, Miss Cam-approved! Where the Bourne fandom comes for an education in canon, physics, and common sense, taught by the people best-suited to mete out justice - the characters themselves. Applications submitted via reviews will NOT be accepted.
1. Recruitment

The Fanfiction Academic Institute of Langley

By GreenCat3/Chatvert with assistance from Mlles. Sara, Christine, and Stephanie...as well as a Markoff.

_Credit for the original OFU idea goes to the incomparable Miss Cam, aka Camilla Sandman. Go read OFUM, it's awesome._

Chapter 1: Recruitment

The girl picked up the half-empty can of Red Bull by her computer and drank, the chemical taste helping to clear her head. How long had she been up? She glanced at the clock in her computer's system tray. _2:37._ She rubbed her eyes sleepily. As much as she wanted to sleep, she couldn't. Not now. Not while she was so close to the breakthrough.

Aly Haskell stared blearily at what was displayed on her monitor, reading over her fanfic one last time. Yes! Haha! Almost immediately the weariness shook itself off from her head. She was done. She was done! She resisted the urge to get up and do a little happy dance, though she was sure that urge was just the Red Bull and Sour Patch Kids talking.

Aly took another sip of the disgusting energy drink, feeling the caffeine and taurine and other assorted vile things that ended in 'ine' flooding through her body. All right, she was pumped now. She could do this. She was so close, so _close_. Once this was up on the web, she could stumble into bed and sleep for a week. For two months she'd been struggling to get this written. It had taken blood, sweat, tears, and a general drop in her math grade (who needs math anyway? she had told herself as she wrote during class), but it was finished. She beamed happily at the Microsoft Word document staring at her from her glowing monitor.

With speed born of a desire to get to bed, her fingers flew along the keys, guiding her to her favorite fanfiction site. Once she had logged in, she went to the section to add a new story. In a trice, she had uploaded the document, filled out all of the necessary information, including the customary summary with the plaintive _'please review!'_ tacked onto the end.

All that was left was to press the final 'Submit' button. And she did.

The page began to load…and stopped. Aly stared at the error message that had popped up. It was unlike any she had ever seen, particularly from this site:

_Error 041571:  
User has attempted illegal function call; fanfic frozen._

Aly kept on staring at her monitor. _'Fanfic frozen'? _She clicked on the 'More…' button, hoping to discover more about the strange and frankly unnerving error.

_User has attempted to post unauthorized fanfic._

The girl picked up her can of Red Bull and took another sip from it, scowling at her screen. '_Unauthorized'? What the hell does that mean?_

"It means," said a calm and pleasant voice from behind her, "that you're in big trouble."

Aly choked on her mouthful of energy drink, nearly spitting it out all over the monitor. With great effort, she managed to swallow the increasingly intolerable chemical-warfare-in-a-can and slowly swivel around in her chair. Nothing could have prepared her for what she was about to see.

_How did they get in my room?_ was her first thought, for there were two impeccably-suited men standing right in the middle of her room, as though they had always been there. But her computer was practically facing the door, and all the windows were closed…

_Oh. That's right,_ she thought with a sidelong glance at her can of Red Bull, her fourth of the evening. _It's all a sugar hallucination. I just need to go to sleep._

One of the suits smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes – not that she could tell, because both of them were wearing dark, eye-obscuring shades. That didn't seem to hinder them one bit, though, because the second one began to speak almost as soon as she had turned around.

"Miss Alyssa Marie Haskell?" he asked, consulting a clipboard.

"Yes?" Aly asked, thoroughly confused.

The other suit cleared his throat and began to speak. Both of them, Aly noted, had identical crew cuts. Very governmental. "Miss Haskell, it has come to our attention that you have been writing fanfiction."

"Uh, yeah." Aly was nonplussed. "What of it? What, is fanfiction illegal now? Are you guys, like, the RIAA or something? 'Cause, okay, I've downloaded a little bit of music, you know, a few gigs, like ten or so, but I was going to give it back, honest…"

The suits didn't bother to correct her. The one with the clipboard merely produced a stack of papers in a manila folder – from just where, Aly couldn't tell – and held it out to her. Bewildered, she accepted it. "This contains your application for the Fanfiction Academic Institute of Langley," he said.

"Also known as FAIL," the other suit added helpfully, taking great care to enunciate each letter of the acronym.

"Fail?" Aly asked.

Again, she was ignored by the businesslike government men. The clipboarded one spoke again. "It has been requested that you attend, and is indeed in your best interests to do so."

"What if I don't?" Aly shot back. Lack of sleep had made her cranky, and this hallucination wasn't fun anymore.

"Then you will no longer be allowed to write fanfiction." The G-man tapped the folder, which was stamped 'Confidential'. "We await your response." In an eyeblink, the two of them were gone, leaving a very confused and irritated Aly behind.

"What in God's name was _that_ all about?" she wondered aloud. She looked down. The folder was still in her hands. Figuring that she may as well milk the hallucination for all it was worth, she flipped through its contents. There was what looked to be a fairly standard college application, mercifully free of financial aid information and writing samples (which was how she knew it wasn't real), and a listing of courses. Curiously, she skimmed the course catalog.

'Secondary Characters and You. Lecturers: Alexander Conklin, Dr. Morris Panov.' 'Bookverse vs. Movieverse. Lecturers: Marie St. Jacques-Webb, Marie Kreutz.' 'Survival Skills 101. Lecturer: Jason Bourne.'

Aly's eyes went wide. If Jason Bourne – _Matt Damon himself!_ – was going to be teaching a course, this might not be such a bad hallucination after all. What was the harm in filling out the applications? It wasn't like they were real, after all. And she'd filled out enough of them to be able to do them in her sleep – which she quite suspected she was doing anyway. Proof positive that she'd really been too focused on the whole college thing, if she was _dreaming_ about it…

Some of the questions were a bit odd, though. 'Proficiency with firearms, Y/N? If 'Y', specify.' _What the hell?_ Aly found herself thinking that phrase with disturbing regularity, and circled 'N'. All weirdness aside, though, she dutifully filled the entire form out and placed it on her desk next to her computer. She told the machine to hibernate and stumbled off to bed. Curiously enough, the error message had disappeared from her screen, but she was too tired to notice. Her sugar rush seemed to have hit the wall. By the time she had wriggled under the covers, the manila folder with her application in it had vanished from her desk – not that Aly would have noticed, because she was already fast asleep.

If she had known what would happen to her when she awoke, she would have likely chugged six more cans of Red Bull and never slept again.

--

_Enrolment for FAIL is now open! Since the Staff would really appreciate not getting the Hand of God waved at them, applications submitted through the site (in reviews) _will not_ be accepted. Please copy and paste the following form, fill it out, and email it to us at bourneofu(at)gmail(dot)com._

_Name:_

_Age:_

_Gender:_

_Hair color:_

_Eye color:_

_Build: _

_Have you read the books?:_

_--Even the recent, non-Ludlum sequels?:_

_Have you seen the movies?:_

_Have you seen the 1988 miniseries?:_

_Lust objects:_

_Is your lusting obvious?:_

_Favorite character(s):_

_Hated characters(s)? Why?:_

_Favorite pairing(s):_

_Hated pairing(s)? Why?: _

_Slash? (circle one): Y / N_

_Have you read OFUM?: _

_Proficiency with firearms, Y / N ? (circle one). _

_--If Y, specify:_

_Fear of the following (mark all that apply): Jackals / Heavy Books / Heights / Military Training / CIA Agents / Canes / Treadstone and/or Blackbriar / Prosthetic Limbs / The U.S. Government / Russians / Psychoanalysis / Alcoholics / Old Men / Clergy / The Mafia / Interrogation_

_Chosen affiliation (circle one): CIA / KGB / Carlos the Jackal / Bourne_

_Do not worry about providing a writing sample. We already have more than enough._

_Welcome to FAIL._

_Miss Alex, Miss Sara, Miss Christine, Miss Stephanie, and Markoff_


	2. The insanity begins

Chapter 2: The insanity begins

Aly awoke the next morning – at least, she _thought_ it was the next morning – and sat up in bed. _That dream was pretty weird last night,_ she thought, rubbing her eyes. _I have _got_ to lay off the energy drinks. No Red Bull for me._ Perhaps there was something to what the health nuts said in their anti-energy-drink tirades.

It took her a moment to realize that her room was no longer her room anymore. In fact, it looked rather like an office that someone had transplanted beds into.

_Wait, an office?_ Convinced that she was still dreaming, she shook her head and swung her feet out of the covers. She wasn't one to wear socks to bed, so her feet came directly in contact with the scratchy office-issue carpet. She looked around. It seemed like a normal college dorm room, albeit with four beds, but it also strongly resembled a converted office. The desks even looked more professional than institutional.

"I have _got_ to be dreaming," she muttered, shaking her head again.

"Oh, you're awake," someone said. Aly tried very hard not to jump out of her skin and turned around slowly. She found herself face-to-face with a girl about her own age, maybe a little older, with long, dark hair and olive skin. The girl smiled kindly at her. "No, you're as awake as you're going to get. It's a bit of a shock, I know. You might want to sit down."

Aly's knees gave out and she collapsed back onto the bed. "What…what happened? Where am I?"

The girl's smile turned wry. "You signed the forms, didn't you?" Aly nodded slowly. "Ah, then you should know all about it already. This is the Fanfiction Academic Institute of Langley."

"Fail?" Aly asked weakly.

"Yeah, something like that," the girl said dismissively. Aly noticed that she had a pronounced Boston accent. "I'm Zahira Hakim. Nice to meet you."

"Alyssa Haskell," the bewildered new student heard herself say. "But I prefer Aly."

"Looks like we're roommates," Zahira said, helping Aly to her feet. "I guess it's because our last names are so close together. You're in it for the long haul, like me."

The news hit Aly like a thunderbolt. "My stuff! My clothes! I can't go out in _these_!" she yelped, gesturing to her pastel-colored pajamas. The light blue tank top had a cartoon cow on it.

The Arabic girl eyed the pajamas critically. "No, I suppose not," she said. "Check the dresser. Your clothes ought to be in it. Mine were. You should also have a couple of suitcases. I'd ask how they knew what to put in them, but I really don't want to think about that. Somehow I don't think that would be Dr. Panov's territory."

"Dr. _who_?" Aly asked, rifling through her dresser, and realizing only too late that she'd just invoked a British sci-fi series.

Zahira's tone was resigned. "Didn't read the books, did you?"

"No, never got around to it," Aly said, sounding chagrined. "Anyway," she offered by way of reconciliation, "weren't all the important characters in the movies?"

Immediately she could tell she'd said the wrong thing, because Zahira stiffened slightly in the corner of her peripheral vision. "In a manner of speaking," her roommate said in an incredibly stilted voice. "Though they did leave out some pretty important ones."

"Like this Panov guy?" Aly said, immediately sorry. She'd never really had great social skills, but if she was going to be sharing an office-room with this girl and two others for the next God-knew-how-long, it wouldn't hurt to at least make an effort. "I'll get to reading them, then. If, you know, I have time. They're pretty long, aren't they?"

"Yeah." The word was delivered in a monotone. Her roommate had been placated, but not by much.

"Come to think of it, isn't he teaching a course?" Aly wondered aloud as she shrugged a t-shirt on over her pajamas. She was wondering why the name had seemed familiar.

Almost immediately Zahira became animated again. "Yeah, he's teaching a few! I want to sign up for all of them!" She grinned, and Aly got the distinct feeling that she was more than a little mentally unbalanced, and _definitely_ off her medication.

"Right…" Aly decided to navigate out of these dangerous waters and move onto a safer topic. "So, um…who's your favorite character, then?"

"Hard to say," Zahira said cheerfully. "Marie, Conklin, Dr. Panov…but I especially love Jason." She got a faraway look in her eyes. "Matt Damon is _preeetty_…"

Aly had opened her mouth, about to put in her own thoughts on Conklin, which ran pretty much like this: _Conklin? Isn't he that jerk from the first movie who gets totally owned at the end? How could you like _him_?_ Her sense of self-preservation kicked in, however, and instead she said, "I totally agree, man. Matt Damon is _beyond_ pretty. He's _gorgeous_."

"Smoking," Zahira added.

"Definitely." Aly could breathe a sigh of relief. At least they agreed on _something_. Maybe this place wouldn't be quite so bad after all…

Thanks to the Narrative Laws of Comedy, in conjunction with the Ironic Overpower, at precisely that moment a loud chime of microphone feedback blared through the cunningly concealed loudspeakers in the upper corners of the room. _"Attention, students!"_ an all-too-cheerful voice proclaimed. Aly actually did jump this time. _"There will be an orientation assembly in the Bubble in fifteen minutes. Attendance is mandatory. See you all there!"_ There was a loud click, and the room returned to silence.

Zahira removed her hands from her ears. "Ow," she said delicately.

Aly, who had not been quite so quick, felt as if someone had crashed a pair of cymbals right next to her head several times. "Ow," she agreed.

"Come on," Zahira said, going to the door. "I don't know where the Bubble is, but…it can't be _that_ hard to spot, right?"

"Yeah," Aly said, wobbling in the general direction of the hallway. Once she was out the door, she was able to see that the whole floor seemed to be made of converted offices. Other people, most of them around her own age, were also spilling out of the office-dorms, filing into the hallway and milling around like a pack of confused lemmings. As Aly was trying to follow Zahira, in the chaos she crashed right into someone. Apologizing profusely, she took a step back, then did a double-take. This guy could be her twin brother. There was maybe an inch's difference between their heights, and they had the same ginger-brown hair and blue eyes.

"Uh…hi," she said awkwardly, only just realizing that she'd bolted out of the room half-pajamaed and still barefoot.

"Hi," the boy said, grinning. "You all right, then?"

"Yeah…yeah, I'm fine," Aly said.

Zahira came pushing back through the crowd – not an easy feat, because the students were packed like sardines. "Aly? What's keeping you?" Then, to the boy, "Oh...hi."

"I, uh...I bumped into someone," Aly said, sounding incredibly embarrassed again.

"Actually, you nearly knocked me over, but it was so totally ungraceful, I can forgive you for it," the boy told her. He looked at Zahira. "Hi. I'm Ray."

"I'm Zahira, and the ungraceful one is Aly," Zahira said.

"Hey!" She looked at Ray. "I'm really sorry about that."

Ray shrugged. "'S cool. You're not the first. At least we haven't hit stampede mode yet. Then things get _really_ interesting."

"I'd bet," Aly said. "You know where this Bubble thingy is?"

Ray looked at her like she was an idiot. "Uh, like, follow the signs?" He shook his head. "I thought you had to be able to read to get in here. Although maybe the lack of common sense does that to us..."

"In her defense, it's kind of hard to see with all of these people around," Zahira said as the packed hallway began to move. "So...follow the sheep?"

"And hope the leader doesn't inexplicably fall down a totally unfab cliff," Ray said. "That would, like...suck."

"That's lemmings," Aly said. "And anyway, they don't actually _do_ that."

"Yeah, but sheep are dumb," Ray said, indicating the giant group that was slowly moving out onto the grounds in one huge herd. "They'd probably go over if there was a character at the bottom."

"Huh...I guess," Aly replied, not really knowing what he was talking about.

Ray gave her a Look. "Do you even know why you're here?"

"Kind of?"

"She read the forms before she filled them out," Zahira added, jumping back into the conversation. "Anyway, that's why we have orientation."

"Oh, good, someone with sense," Ray said with a grin. "I was beginning to think that all the fangirls were rabid, drooling, screeching, makeup-wielding beasts." He shuddered.

"You have _no idea_ what me being the 'sensible' one implies," Zahira said dryly, walking with the crowd.

Aly gazed around the campus, trying to take in as much as she could. It looked a lot like the exterior shots of the CIA from the movies. "This is so _weird_," she said, shivering a little.

"You're living in a dorm that's been converted from a CIA look-alike with bad carpeting and _hideous_ interior design in order to learn how to write proper fanfiction," Ray said, closing his eyes in disgust for a moment. "Weird is a bit of an understatement."

Aly shook her head. She could see what she took to be the Bubble up ahead. It was aptly named – the futuristic-looking auditorium did resemble a giant soap bubble in some ways. There was a huge banner stretched across the area above the entrance that read 'FAIL Orientation Week – Yes, We Know What It Spells'. "Well, smack me on the head and call me a wombat."

"I would, but I don't think your hair can withstand the beating," Ray quipped as they approached the auditorium.

Aly glanced quizzically at Zahira. "Should I take that as a compliment?"

"Probably not," the Arabic girl said, trying to hide a smirk.

"Did you even _look_ in a mirror this morning?" Ray complained. "Besides, you could use a cut. The way it is now totally makes your face look square."

Aly threw her hands up into the air. "Heaven help me, I've just crashed into the resident stylist."

"He's cute," Zahira said absently. "Can we keep him?"

Ray flinched as they entered the auditorium. "You're not going to attack me, are you?" In response to the girls' stares, he added, "The last time someone here called me cute, I ended up strapped to a bed with girls trying to fluff me up. They had totally no sense of highlight/shadow use and their restraints were very unstylish."

The girls kept on staring at him as they walked. After a beat, Aly managed to muster up the brainpower to say, "Uh...maybe you could fix up my hair later, if you want?"

Ray beamed. "That'd be totally rad! We should talk about a whole makeover. The pajamas-and-day-clothes thing is kinda grungy, sweetie. Very last year."

Aly scowled. "Trust me. If it were my decision, I would definitely not be wearing this..."

Before they could get into a discussion about the finer points of haute couture, Zahira said, quite lucidly, "Oh, look. We're here, everybody."

Aly immediately looked up at the stage. And stared. An impossible number of people were crammed onto the stage in those metal folding chairs. If she tried to count them all, she knew she would get a headache. In between the two nebulous groups on the stage, there sat five people, but she wasn't interested in them. Why would there be two groups, though? It didn't make any sense to her. What Zahira had said in passing about the books came back to her. But the characters couldn't be _that _different, could they? Certainly not enough to warrant duplicates...There was one in the group on her left who grabbed her attention and held it at gunpoint, and she couldn't look away, even if she had wanted to.

"Oh my God," she breathed, "is that _Matt Damon_?"

"Better," Zahira said, matching her reverent tone. "It's _Jason Bourne_..."

Ray gasped. "Ohmigod, ohmigodohmigodohmigod. That's _the_ Jason Bourne on stage..."

Zahira was looking at the stage with a creepy fixed grin on her face, looking like all of her Christmases had come at once. "Two," she said happily, counting people on the very large stage. "_Two_ Conklins."

Meanwhile, Ray was flailing his hands about like a very happy man. "Oh my _God_, they're all so gorgeous! I wonder if assets mind being glomped...so pretty...they are _so _pretty..."

"This is _nuts_," Aly whispered, convinced that she was dreaming. The same thought seemed to be on Ray's mind.

"Am I dreaming? Really? Can I be awake? Is this real? They're more hott than I ever imagined!" he squealed.

"You just said 'hot' with two Ts," Aly noted. "I heard them." For she had, she had distinctly heard the second T slide into place as he spoke. It was more than a little unnerving. "Is that even possible?"

"It's a feature of FAIL," he said, and grinned like a true fanboy. "Ohmigod, Treadstone assets!" He jumped up and down in place, letting out an 'Eeeee!' sound. Aly got the feeling that he was gayer than James from _Pokémon_.

"_Down_, boy," Zahira said, and yanked him down into his seat. One of the black-clad five towards the front of the stage – _Staff members,_ Aly realized suddenly – had gotten out of her seat and walked to the podium. Almost instantly the entire auditorium became silent, and all of the students sat as one. This was someone who nobody wanted to trifle with.

The young woman glared at her audience. Aly tried to shrink back in her seat, frightened despite herself. It was worse than being sent to the principal's office. At least the principal couldn't make your life _too_ much of a living hell...

Either to make sure that she had everyone's attention or just for the purpose of making them wince, the young woman tapped the microphone. All of the students cringed as the loud thumping noise rang out through the auditorium. "Welcome to the Fanfiction Academic Institute of Langley," she said. "Also known, for purposes of expediency, as FAIL." Like the suits, she made sure to pronounce each letter separately. A grim little smile crossed her face. "Be sure that you do not. I am Miss Alex, your course coordinator. You will meet the rest of the staff shortly." That strange little smile again. "First, let me explain the mechanics of the Institute. You are all here because you were writing fanfiction without a license – fanfiction that is, in most cases, completely and utterly atrocious." Aly shrank down in her seat unconsciously again. Her fanfiction hadn't been _atrocious_...

"Happily, the purpose of the Institute is to remedy this situation before it gets too terribly out of hand," Miss Alex continued. "You will remain here until you pass all of your courses and have suitably demonstrated your knowledge of canon, grammar, and common bloody sense. Then, and only then, will you attain your licenses." She paused. "Of course, you can leave at any time. Without a license, of course. Which means, therefore, that you will be unable to pen further fanfiction for this fandom. And trust me, we have Ways of finding out, and we do not deal well with repeat offenders. If any of you feel that you are not up to the challenge...there's the door."

Not one student moved. Miss Alex nodded. "Right. On to the second topic. Your time here runs sideways to your own world. Should you pass or drop out, you will be returned at the precise moment you left. So there's no need to freak out...about that, at least." Again she smiled in that odd way, which Aly was coming to recognize as a sort of humorless smirk. "As you may have noticed, we have an unusually high number of staff members. The reason for this is that, since the canons of the books and the movies are so divergent, the characters have changed sufficiently to become distinctly separate. Those from the books are on my right - " Some of the bookverse characters and incarnations waved - "and movie characters are on my left." A few of the movie characters smiled at the students, but most of them, Bourne included, looked pretty bloody-minded. Movie-Conklin's smile looked particularly brittle as he gazed out over the sea of students, and it was pretty obvious that he was planning homicide. Aly gulped, having classified him as the Token Jerkface in many of her fanfics. She didn't think he'd forgive an insult like that easily.

"You'll meet each of them in turn, as introducing everyone would take far more time than even I have patience for. With that, I think I'll pass the floor over to Miss Sara, co-coordinator. Sara?" she asked, stepping back from the podium.

Another young woman stood and replaced Alex at the podium. She looked out at the assembled students for a few seconds, and then said, "Thank you. As Miss Alex mentioned before, I am Miss Sara, and you will get to know me very well over the coming months. As the official Arbiter of Sense in FAIL, I'm here to make sure you keep to reality. Too often students of our prestigious academy seem to have a very tenuous grasp on it, resulting in much pain for those who read your work. There are some things that are simply not possible, and you need to learn this. If you have ever read the works of – " And at this she paused, suppressing a shudder and the urge to bash her head against the podium, "– the Abjured, you should have seen some of his inconsistencies with reality. Many of you also seem to have this problem." Some of the canon characters began to mutter ominously, supposedly calling curses down upon this 'Abjured'.

Aly wondered just who – or _what_ – the 'Abjured' was. If he made even the staff shudder...well, she'd rather not find out.

"While attending the academy, you will learn what is possible, and what is not," Miss Sara continued coolly, as though there had never been a lapse of composure to begin with. "There is nothing that irritates me more than pseudo-science, and just because it sounds cool doesn't make it right. The staff is here to enlighten you on this subject. While you are here, it is in your best interest to listen to your teachers and follow the Commandments to the letter, or else a very sticky end awaits you. Do remember, dear students, that the laws here are what we make them, and our staff have read many of your works." She glanced over at the groups to either side of her who were still glaring at the audience. "And let me tell you…they were not very pleased. Nor was I. You keep to the canon or I'll stab you with a spork. That's probably the least painful of the punishments that await misbehavior.

"So, from now on, you will attend classes each day on a wide variety of subjects in order to bring your knowledge of the canon up-to-date and ensure that you stick to a reality that does not involve insane crossovers, fake science, or Mary Sues. You will all meet your teachers when classes begin tomorrow. Schedules will be waiting for you when you return to your dormitories. Please remember to stay within the grounds and keep to curfew, because security has kill-orders for intruders and escapees, and we will not stop them. I will let Miss Christine take over the more finicky details on that very subject."

A third young woman took her place at the podium. Like the others, she was dressed almost entirely in black, with a long coat, oddly immaculate white gloves, and a black hat that had a nick taken out of the wide brim. Aly found herself wondering why the brim was made of fabric, while the part that actually went around the head was made of tawny fur. It made her look rather like a colorblind pimp.

"Hello, students," said the blond instructor with a very manic grin plastered all over her face. Aly was quickly forming the opinion that everyone who worked here was some kind of psychopath. "Many of you don't bother to copy-edit your own work, and misspell characters' names. As a result, you've provided me – and yourselves – with these wonderful little creatures." She raised her hands to her hat and detached the furry part.

And then Aly understood why the headgear had looked so odd. The furry trim wasn't furry trim – it was a small animal, about the size of a largish housecat. It even looked quite a bit like a largish housecat, except upon closer inspection, it was definitely a canine. Not a domesticated dog, but something that belonged out in the wilderness, roaming through low scrub and savannah.

Miss Christine's voice was quiet, and yet carried all throughout the room as she held up the dozy creature. "Mini-Jackals." Then, "They can run faster than you can, and they have no qualms about injuring you, even maiming you a little. Aren't they adorable?"

The mini-Jackal yawned, showing perfect, pointy white teeth to the students, then snapped its jaw shut with a disturbing finality, like it had just dispatched prey. "Granted, it's a bit literal," Miss Christine said, almost apologetically. "We don't have any real monsters in this canon. So we borrowed the epithet of the books' antagonist...Carlos the Jackal." An older man in priest's garb who was sitting on the 'book' side of the stage inclined his head mockingly, his eyes searching the crowd, seeking out anyone who dared laugh. Luckily for the well-being of the student body, nobody made a sound. Everyone was transfixed by the small wild dogs that had begun to file out, as though commanded, from behind the rows of seats on the stage. There was almost a small army of them, and they all sat, facing the students, too-intelligent eyes seeking out their creators.

"And remember," Miss Christine said wickedly, "you have only yourselves to blame for them." A groan arose from the amassed students as they thought back on their spelling mistakes. Aly knew she was responsible for at least two – Vossen and Landry, from a particularly 'atrocious' ship of hers (she didn't care what anyone said, their hostility was sexual tension, dammit) – and really didn't want to think about how her creations would reward her. She was so caught up in her misery and daydreams of being mauled by cute things that she failed to notice Miss Alex taking the microphone again.

"Miss Stephanie...well, you'll find out what she does later," she said with a truly scary grin. "Markoff is in charge of all non-mini security," she said, indicating the only male staff member on stage. "Don't mess with him, because you will find yourself in a worse place than you would had you tangled with the mini-Jackals." The Russian man folded his arms, a smirk on his face. The more impressionable students cowered.

Miss Alex threw up an arm grandly. "And so, once again students, welcome to FAIL. Keep your mind out of the gutters, follow the rules, and don't bother praying. Your gods don't live here. I hope you survive." There was that scary grin again. "Dismissed."

Aly covered her eyes with one hand. Dead, dead, dead, she was so _dead_. Beside her, if she'd been looking, she would have seen that Zahira was much, much paler than her dark complexion should allow her to be, and the ever-present grin had slid from Ray's face. All of them glanced at each other, the same thought going through their heads.

"Damn, we're _screwed_," Zahira said finally.

--

_Enrolment for FAIL is open until further notice. So what are you waiting for? Get the form from the previous chapter and email it to bourneofu(at)gmail(dot)com for your opportunity to join the...fun._

_...yeah, that's it, fun._

_Props go to my good friend, beta, and muse Miss Sara for helping me out with this chapter._


	3. Fun with jackals

Chapter 3: Fun with jackals

The despondent students left the auditorium, grousing about the coming pain. The mini-Jackals were already mingling amongst the masses, sniffing at legs here and nipping at ankles there, and generally having a good time. The same could not be said, however, for the students.

"Now what?" Aly asked her new friends, part of the tail end of the crowd that was filing out of the Bubble.

"We could go back to our room and see if our other roommates have showed up," Zahira said.

Aly bit her lip. That sounded...well, it sounded _boring_, quite frankly, and she hadn't signed up for this place to be bored. Not that she was likely to be once classes started, but she'd never been known as a patient person.

Thankfully, a loud growl made her decision for her. At first she looked around, expecting to see one of the minis about to sink its teeth into her leg, and then realized that the growling was her. "Uh..." she said sheepishly. "What time is it?"

Zahira glanced at her watch. "Looks like lunchtime."

"Super," Ray said, grinning. "I could stand a snack myself."

"Anyone know where the cafeteria is?" Aly asked her group. Unsurprisingly, Zahira nodded. Despite her sheer crazy, she seemed to be the most knowledgeable one of the group.

"Yeah, it's not that far from here. Come on!" she said cheerfully and started off in a new direction. Some other students were headed that way as well – Aly guessed that they were hungry, too.

The three of them led the wave, Zahira at the head. Some of the mini-Jackals were following them, either because they wanted to beg for food or because they wanted to harass the students, and possibly for both reasons. This gave Aly cause to go just that little bit faster, until Zahira grabbed onto her arm. "Don't," the Arab-American girl said grimly, her eyes on a nervous-looking girl to their left. "Watch."

The other girl had broken off from the pack, clearly unnerved by the mini-Jackals' constant stares and nips. She started to run, soon passing the three new friends in the front. As if they had been commanded, the little jackals all surged ahead of the main body of students, in obvious pursuit of their prey. Aly was struck dumb by the remarkable similarity this showed to a wolfpack on the hunt that she'd seen on the Discovery Channel one time. It looked like this was going to have the same tragic conclusion.

The lead mini yipped, and its packmates spread out, racing to encircle the runner in a pincer movement. The girl shrieked as she saw some of the mini-Jackals running ahead of her, and some of them started to nip at her legs. She shrieked again. The entire column of students had stopped to watch the impending carnage, as if it were a spectator sport. The jackals looked to be herding her into a prime position for the kill. Suddenly, they sprang upon her, knocking her down as she screamed. Aly watched, horrified, certain that the creatures would kill the girl. The mini-Jackals, however, weren't trying to rip out her throat. They were all standing on her, biting at her arms and legs and prodding her with their claws.

"Are they _playing_ with her?" Aly asked, staring at the odd scene.

"Ohmigod, I am never going to run away from those things," Ray said. "They'd, like, get their nasty little paws all over my clothes and mess up my hair! Totally unfab."

Aly was pretty sure that Ray had his priorities all messed up. She'd be more worried about the Grievous Bodily Harm, herself.

Miss Christine seemed to appear from nowhere, and, after a moment of letting the minis play with their prize, hauled the traumatized girl up by her wrist, without any apparent sympathy. The poor unfortunate's mascara was running as she blubbed. "Oh, stop it, you're all right," Miss Christine snapped.

"But, like, they _bit_ me!" the girl wailed. "I'm going to get _rabies_!"

"Nonsense. My charges are quite clean," the black-hatted Staff member said stiffly. "Can't say anything for the state of their health after biting _you_, though." She dragged the student off. "Come on, if you're going to _whine_ so, I'll take you to the Infirmary. Come _on_, you silly girl," she said, hauling the dirty and frightened girl off. "Though I feel compelled to warn you that the head physician is an alcoholic British expat..."

Zahira was shaking her head critically. "She shouldn't have ran," she said. "They think you're prey if you run. Triggers the hunting instinct."

"How do you _know _all this?" Aly asked incredulously.

"I've got a dog at home," she said, as if that explained everything.

"Does it, like, shed, or something?" Ray asked. "'Cause, ew. It would totally get all over my clothes and stuff. It's, like, impossible to get out."

"That's _cats_, Ray. Well, dogs too, but mostly cats," Aly said.

"You don't know _anything _about animals, do you?" Zahira asked. The entertainment was over, and everyone began moving towards the cafeteria again, directed by the mini-Jackals. Aly got the distinct feeling that she was a sheep, being herded by big, shaggy dogs in New Zealand, or Greece, or wherever the sheep lived nowadays.

"I don't like the ones that shed," Ray said, sounding miffed. "Lizards are cool."

"Yeah, but man, you don't know what you're missing..." As the two of them began a spate of pointless fake arguing, Aly tuned out. She would swear that Ray and Zahira were meant for each other if Ray wasn't gayer than a picnic basket full of unicorns. Maybe Freud was wrong, and not _everything_ was based in some deep, secret sexual whatsit.

Oh, but life – and fanfic – was so much more _fun_ that way.

Almost before she knew it, the minis had stopped herding them, and they'd arrived in the cafeteria's seating area. Aly literally could not believe her eyes. This place was _huge_! "Holy crap," she said, looking to the far end of the gigantic, well-designed room. It could easily seat every single one of the students and all of the teachers and staff, and still have enough room for all of the minis to have their own places at table. "I think the CIA overdesigned their cafeteria space."

"Hm, I don't think so, Aly," Zahira said. "The intelligence community can really pack away the sloppy joes. I mean, on any given day this cafeteria will serve as many as eight thousand chicken fingers with a choice of three kinds of dipping sauces."

"Sixty tons of tapioca pudding per day!" Ray continued, then helpfully added, "Gross."

"Okay, I'm sorry I ever doubted the CIA's cafeteria!" Aly laughed.

"Come on," Zahira said. She had already gotten into the lunch line, and Aly and Ray dashed to follow her.

"I can't believe it," Aly said, shaking her head and looking bemused. "This place is gigantic."

"Probably has its own zip code," Ray said as they shuffled forwards. Aly caught sight of a whiteboard by the entrance to the food-purchasing area that had the day's specials on it:

_Spaghetti w/ meat sauce _

_Fruit slices, assorted vegetables_

_Jello_

_Caffeine-free Diet Coke_

"Caffeine-free?" Zahira muttered, eying the whiteboard with distaste. "Really?"

"Those are just the specials," Ray noted. "Great, 'cause I don't want any of that. You think they have sushi?"

"If they did, would they waste it on us?" Aly asked him.

Ray's face fell. "Guess not...but I want some anyway."

Finally, the lot of them entered the cafeteria proper. If the seating area had knocked the wind from Aly's sails before, this completely capsized the boat, and smacked her in the head with the boom for good measure. It looked like a food court in there, though with less neon than usual.

"Not bad," Ray said, sounding pleased as he surveyed the fields of food. "Not bad at all."

"That's an understatement," Zahira said dryly, grabbing a pink plastic tray and moving to the burger booth. Aly was craving a cheeseburger herself, so she waved goodbye to Ray and followed her roommate with a tray of her own.

"Save me a spot!" Ray hollered to her. She flashed him a thumbs-up and returned her attention to the burger booth.

"Can I help you?" an eerily calm male voice said. Aly looked up...and tried very, very hard not to giggle. The speaker was one of the suits from before (or maybe not...they all looked alike, anyway), except now he didn't look half so threatening in a hairnet and teal apron.

"Uh...cheeseburger and fries, please," she managed to choke out, somehow keeping her face almost completely straight. The emotionless, hairnetted suit carefully placed a cheeseburger on a plate, along with what Aly thought was a far too stingy portion of French fries. "Enjoy your meal," he said in a monotone, handing the plate to her over the sneeze guard.

"Thanks," Aly mumbled, putting her plate on the tray and trying not to look at the suit. Zahira was smirking, Aly could tell, but she'd coughed suddenly to try and hide it. They moved on to the drinks area, where Zahira skipped right to the Mountain Dew. Aly, taking her time about it, finally selected a Diet Coke. No need to go all out, after all.

The two of them searched the cafeteria for a good three minutes before Ray finally caught their attention. The teenage boy had started to wave to them from the table he had found. "Hey," he said, grinning again as they sat down. "This place maybe isn't so, like, bad, you know?"

"No sushi?" Zahira asked, indicating Ray's salad with one hand as she layered fries underneath her burger bun with the other.

He shook his head. "Nah. Which is kind of unfab, but whatever. This salad's pretty good, actually."

"I didn't take you for the rabbit-food kind of person," Zahira said, and took a huge bite of her bacon cheeseburger. "Mmmm."

"That totally looks like a heart attack just, like, waiting to happen," Ray sniffed.

"'S good," Zahira said thickly once she'd swallowed the massive chunk of cheeseburger. "Want some?"

"No, thanks," Ray said, shaking his head. "You keep your bits of dead cow."

"More for us, then," Aly quipped, and picked up her cheeseburger. As she was about to take a bite, she felt something tugging on her burger. "Zahira, cut it out, you have your own," she said, sounding irritated.

"Hey, that ain't me," Zahira said, her mouth half-full.

"Ray?" Aly asked quizzically.

"Not me. You couldn't, like, pay me to touch that thing. All the totally unfab Mad Cow and junk."

"Then who's trying to take my burger?!" Aly asked, and raised her hands up, fighting the resistance that was tugging on her food. She tried very hard not to to scream. A mini-Jackal had somehow gotten on the table and was trying to take her food! The jackal growled and she instinctively dropped the burger. Seeming satisfied with itself, the small beast ripped off half of her cheeseburger and dashed off.

"It stole my goddamn food!" Aly yelped. She looked up at her two table-mates. Zahira had bitten her burger and was carrying out a game of tug-of-war with another mini-Jackal, and Ray was watching her and eating his salad, quite amused and unmolested.

"Mmhy mmuckhin' mmurher!" she growled, staring down the mini. It growled back. Zahira imitated it, and then shook her head, trying to shake the jackal off of her burger. The mini held on, tenacious as its target. Finally, Zahira shook her head hard enough, and the mini came away with a little less than half of her burger. It growled at her again and dashed off, its prize secured.

All over the cafeteria, similar scenes were occurring as students tried to fight off the ravenous beasties that were after their food. In most cases, the minis took about half of the assorted foodstuffs; the truly unlucky students were left with a few scraps.

"Oh, _man_," Ray chortled, looking at the two unhappy girls. "You should see the looks on your faces..." As he was laughing at their misfortune, another mini came up and ate about half of his salad. "Hey! That is, like, _totally_ unfab! Give it _back_, you little furball!"

The mini swallowed a cherry tomato and snarled at him. Ray decided to back down after that, and the jackal ate a few more lettuce leaves and trotted off, apparently very self-satisfied.

"I thought jackals didn't eat vegetables," Ray said, sounding lost as he stared forlornly at the remains of his Caesar salad.

"They're omnivorous," Miss Christine said, waltzing by to look over her charges' handiwork. "You'd do well to look after your food here. Survival of the fittest is still very much a rule." Smiling slightly, she tossed her blond hair over her shoulder and walked off, tugging the brim of her hat down.

Zahira stared at the remains of her burger for a good long minute before she stuffed it unceremoniously into her mouth, fries and all.

"That's double-disgusting," Ray said, but his heart wasn't really in it. He jabbed at a crouton listlessly.

"'M mrngn' mmphns mm mh mh'st mheel," Zahira said around her food.

"Say again?" Aly asked, holding her half-burger and looking around for any more marauding jackals.

Her roommate finally managed to swallow without choking. "'M bringing weapons to the next meal," she clarified, and took a huge gulp of soda to help the burger on its way down.

Aly sighed and started eating what was left of her own cheeseburger at a more sedate pace. Maybe this place wasn't as fun as she thought it would be. "Do you even _have_ any weapons?"

"I can get some," Zahira asserted.

"Yeah, right."

"Just you wait, I can so!"

"Look out, I think they're on their way back," Ray cautioned, now shoveling lettuce and croutons into his mouth at superhuman speed. Aly wasted no more time talking, and followed her friends' lead. She wasn't about to be robbed a second time.

Meanwhile, back at the staff table, Miss Christine had finished with her rounds and returned to her seat. "Marvelous creatures, these little jackals."

"You would think so, wouldn't you?" Miss Stephanie asked dryly, a forkful of spaghetti halfway to her mouth.

"Yes, actually," her friend said, tucking into her own plate of ravioli.

"What kind of ravioli is that?"

"Rat," Miss Christine said sedately.

"You are _disgusting_."

"My little pets bring them to me. It's kind of sweet, actually. They're like cats."

"Hm." Miss Stephanie returned her attention to her own pasta. "What are you going to do when they bring back students?"

Miss Christine looked contemplative. "Well, there's a lot more meat on them. I fancy we could have a go at making some pies."

"As entertaining as making meat pies out of students would be, it's not exactly canonical. Or sanitary," Miss Sara pointed out from further down the table. Unlike the others, her plate was full of smoked salmon. "Who knows what kinds of diseases the students have?"

"I can always add anthrax," the only male Staff member piped up.

"Shut up, Markoff," Miss Alex said, smacking the Russian head of security on the arm lightly. "We're not adding an anthrax plague on top of everything." She paused. "_Yet_."

"Can we wait on the biological weapons until Thursday?" movie-Bourne, hereafter known as Jason, asked from further down the very long table. "I've got _plans_ until then." The way he said 'plans' did not imply that these plans would include going out fishing on the Potomac.

"Jason? You've made lesson plans? Can I take a look?" book-Bourne, hereafter known as David Webb, said curiously.

"They're all in my head, Professor," Bourne said with an apologetic smile. "I try and keep what I _can_ remember in there. My journal's only for memories."

"Well, whatever works for you. Me. Us," Webb corrected himself.

"David? Is that a tinge of multiple personalities I hear over there?" Panov called from the other end of the table.

"Hey, _you_ try interacting with your doppelganger," Webb shot back as Bourne became quickly engaged in a conversation with Marie Kreutz.

"I don't have one!" the psychiatrist said cheerfully. "I'm Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film, remember?"

"Cheeky bastard."

Yes, the staff – both upper and lowercase – were just as mature as the students. Barely.

--

_Enrolment is still open! New students will begin to appear next chapter. Thanks to all who have sent in applications already!_

_Whoever can spot the mildly obscure reference to Bourne-related funny in this chapter will win a goat. Well, okay, not really. But mad props are almost worth a goat, right?_


	4. PE and other forms of torture

Chapter 4: Physical conditioning and other forms of torture

The rest of the day passed mainly without event, except for Zahira making good on her promise to come to dinner armed. The minis had a time trying to get her baseball bat away from her, but they still ended up with half of her pizza, and she ended up with quite a few scratches and bites, which she endured in stoic silence.

She kind of scared Aly, sometimes.

Upon returning to their room, the two girls met their other roommates – Kimmy West, who looked to be about college-age and was very knowledgeable about the books, much to Zahira's delight, and Mia Cervantes, who was fully eleven years Aly's senior, which made Aly the youngest person in the room. She was inclined to be grumpy about it until she actually started to _talk_ to Mia, and they united in their mutual hatred of the Marie/Jason pairing and adoration for the Twu Wuv that was Nicky/Jason. Kimmy and Zahira were getting along like a house on fire, chatting about some boring book thing or other. It was midnight before all of them decided to just call it quits for the night and go to sleep.

_I'm lucky,_ thought Aly as she drifted off. _I didn't even need to change into my pajamas…_

_AWOOGA! AWOOGA! AWOOGA! AWOOGA! AWOOGA!_

"BATTLE STATIONS!" Zahira yelled, fighting with her sheets and eventually crashing out of bed onto the floor in a tangled pile. "To arms, men, to arms! It's an air raid!"

"Zzuh? Wha?" Kimmy sat up in her own bed, rubbing at her eyes. "'s goin' on?"

"Make it stoooooooopppp," Aly groaned, stuffing her head under the pillow.

"Aaa!" Mia yelped, practically jumping up. "What time is it?"

"Four-thirty," the pile of sheets on the floor said.

"You mean in the afternoon, right?" Aly said, struggling to be heard over the continuous alarm.

"Morning." Zahira poked her head out from the sheet-lump and wiggled out.

"Should we change?" Aly asked, extricating herself from her sheets.

"No time!" Mia said, hobbling over to the door and opening it. "Look!" For a crush of students was stampeding through the hallway, each and every one of them wearing their pajamas and wondering just what the hell was going on.

"Let's go," Kimmy said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and stumbling into the hall. Mia, Aly, and Zahira followed suit. It was almost like being caught in a river – signs had been posted to direct the flow of traffic, and all that the students could do was just keep their feet moving. The crowd did the rest.

Finally, the column spilled out onto the grounds, still following the signs, but thankfully not in such a closely compacted formation. Aly could actually breathe now, and as she trotted along with the column, she glanced over at Zahira. Her roommate looked at her and said, in a low voice, "Moo."

"Moo?"

"Moo. I feel like cattle."

"Oh." Aly made a fish face at her, which Zahira imitated right back.

"What's that all about?" Zahira asked quietly.

"Well, tinned sardines don't really make a sound."

"Oh."

"Hey, I think we're slowing down," Mia said, just before she crashed into Kimmy's back and the two of them went tumbling to the ground. Before Aly could have a chance to laugh, she smacked right into the back of another student herself.

"Whoa! If I didn't know any better, I'd, like, think you were crashing into me on purpose," the other student said, helping her up to her feet. "Did you even change from yesterday?"

Aly brushed some of the loose dirt off of her pajamas. "Sorry about that, Ray. And no, as a matter of fact, I didn't."

"You need to be at least five feet away from him at all times," Zahira said, catching them both by the shoulders as she barreled between the two. "Good morning, princess."

"Just because I like men does not make me a princess," Ray said calmly, allowing himself to be towed along.

"I need to give everyone an emasculating nickname. It's a compulsion," Zahira explained. "Just be thankful I don't call you Sparklypoo McUnicorn-kins."

"I am literally speechless with thanks," Ray said dryly.

"I'm just speechless," Aly added.

The crush of students had in fact begun to slow down and spread out some more, mostly because the column was unsustainable in the students' half-awake state. "So what's going on, anyway?" Kimmy asked, picking a twig out of her hair.

"No idea," Zahira said, and immediately shut up when an airhorn blast rolled through the crowd.

"Attention, students!" Aly realized with a sinking feeling that the voice from the megaphone was that of movie-Conklin, and he sounded full of malicious glee. As she jumped slightly on the balls of her feet, she could see that he was dressed like a gym teacher, complete with a New York Mets baseball cap and noisemaking paraphernalia. This did not bode well. "You must complete one circuit of the Academy's campus before you are allowed to go to breakfast! This _is_ a daily exercise. If you insist on writing insanely overpowered operatives, it's only fair that you must undergo the same physical conditioning as they would. I see that none of you have had the foresight to search for proper athletic clothes before you ran out of your rooms. Chilly out here before the sun rises, isn't it?"

"But how were we supposed to _know_?" one of the male students asked, shivering in his boxers and nothing else, and looking very disheartened at the prospect of going on the long run barefoot.

"Not my problem," the former coordinator of Treadstone said smugly. "If you wanted to know, you should have checked your schedules, which I believe were delivered…oh, about ten minutes ago."

Aly remembered why she hated him and wrote him as a jerk so much. He _was_ a jerk. He was a _total_ jerk. She would have to find him and kill him in his sleep. Of course, getting him away from his posse of mini-Jackals would be difficult, but that was secondary. She was going to kill him, she was going to kill him, she was going to _kill_ him.

These wondrous thoughts were shattered by another ear-bursting blast from the airhorn and the students were off like a herd of stampeding wildebeest.

"Aly?" Zahira asked as they began to run.

"Eh?" the other girl asked, momentarily jolted from her mutinous musings.

"Why are you muttering 'I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him'?"

"Because I am," she said viciously, surprising herself with her candor. "I'm going to teach him the true meaning of pain before he dies."

"Are you seriously thinking about killing the old dude?" Ray panted, jogging alongside them.

Zahira scowled. "I take great offense at that comment! He's not old. He's…_mature_. Like a good cut of beef." Her eyes got all misty as she ran, and it was obvious that she'd gone to the Fangirl Place. "Mmm. Beef."

"Okay, I'm not even, like, going to _go_ there," Ray said delicately.

"Yes. I am going to _kill_ him," Aly snarled, gasping for breath. "I mean, this is ridiculous. We're being bossed around by an ugly jerk of a wannabe-gym teacher who's supposed to be dead, and we're running all the way around the grounds of the freaking CIA, and it's _four in the freaking morning and this doesn't make any sense._ It's like this place is run by a bunch of freaking Nazis or something, and—"

Aly was cut off in mid-rant by three of the suits hustling at her from the side. Barely losing speed, two of them grabbed her and the third jabbed her with a needle, then slipped a hood over her head. The suits caught her as her legs crumpled, and continued running off to wherever they were headed, now with their prisoner.

"…wow," Zahira said after a long minute, too scared to stop running. "I think Aly just got _Rendition_ed."

"Don't you mean, like, rendered?" Ray asked, just as freaked-out.

"No, I mean _Rendition_ed. You need to watch more movies, princess…"

The two of them wisely decided to stay away from any topic that could be construed as threatening towards the staff or the institution for the rest of the hearty jog.

-o-

The first thing Aly saw when she came to were rows of sharp, impossibly white teeth. She shrieked.

"Kruetz, that's enough, get down," a voice said, and the mini-Jackal snapped its jaws shut and leapt off of her lap to go sit by its master's feet. There was a glint of metal in the darkness. Aly looked around the room frantically. It seemed to be much like those police interrogation rooms that she'd seen in _Law and Order_ sometimes.

"Where am I?" she asked, struggling in her seat. She'd been propped up in a metal folding chair, and her hands were tied behind her back.

"Nowhere you need to know," a different voice said, and its owner stepped out of the shadows. Aly gulped. It was Miss Stephanie, and she was _smiling_. Miss Christine followed, Kruetz the mini tagging close along on her heels. The metal Aly had seen was a scalpel, which Miss Christine was twirling like a pen.

"Congratulations, freshmeat," Miss Christine said all too cheerfully. "You've broken a rule."

"What? I don't understand! What rule did I break?" Aly squeaked, struggling against her bonds. The two Staff members had been quite thorough; the rope was looped through the bars on either side of the chair, and then around each of her feet. She was trapped.

"Ah, now that would be telling," Miss Stephanie said.

"That's not fair!"

"That's a shame. Neither are we," Miss Christine said carelessly, still twirling that scalpel. "But since this is your first offense…"

"Threatening any member of the staff of the Academy is immediate grounds for punishment," Miss Stephanie said. "And wouldn't you know it? I'm the Director of Discipline. Non-Jackal discipline, anyway."

"Wh-what are you gonna do to me?" Aly asked, still trying to escape from the chair. "Pull out my fingernails? Set my hair on fire? Make me watch _Barney and Friends_?Waterboard me?"

"Now, now, Haskell. That would be torture, which I am duty-bound to inform you that the CIA neither condones nor practices," Miss Stephanie said.

"But we _do_ practice enhanced interrogation," Miss Christine chimed in.

"What's that?" Aly asked dubiously.

"Exactly what it sounds like." The black-clad Staff member grinned scarily.

"But wait!" Aly shrieked. "You can't do this to me! What about the First Amendment? Freedom of speech, yeah?"

"Yeah, except you're in the care of the Academy, and here, as at your high school, threatening faculty members is strictly verboten," Miss Stephanie said. "But you'll learn more about the American government in the relevant class. And freedom of speech doesn't protect slander."

"Slander?" Aly was confused.

"You said some very uncharitable things about Mr. Conklin," Miss Christine clarified.

"The absolute defense to slander is truth," Aly muttered.

"What was that, Haskell?"

"Nothing! Gah! Okay, I swear, I won't do it again," Aly said desperately. "Can I go now?"

Miss Stephanie shook a finger at her. "Tch! You haven't been punished yet. Christine? If you would, please."

Miss Christine disappeared into the darkness, hissing something that sounded like "_Eeeevillll…_" That did not raise Aly's hopes for herself one bit. The Jackal-handler returned shortly, bearing a silver platter that she set down in front of Aly with extreme distaste.

Aly peered at what was on the platter. It was a small, pale green square that couldn't be more than an inch or so wide. It looked, as a matter of fact, a lot like a Starburst. "That's it?" she asked before she could stop herself.

Miss Stephanie nodded briskly. "That's it."

"The Pale Green Evil!" Miss Christine growled, and made a clawing motion at the demonic Starburst.

"So what do I do with it?"

"You eat it, Haskell," Miss Stephanie said.

"And?"

"And then you can go to breakfast."

_That doesn't sound too bad,_ Aly thought. "Could you please free my hands?"

"Certainly. Christine?" Miss Christine darted around behind Aly and sliced neatly through the ropes with her scalpel. The student immediately grabbed her wrists and rubbed at them, trying to restore feeling in her hands.

"Spare us the theatrics, Haskell, just eat your punishment," Miss Christine said.

With trembling hands, Aly picked up the small square. It was a little bit squishier than a Starburst, almost like a paste. Before she could even think about what she was doing, she popped the square into her mouth.

_Huh,_ she thought as the square sat on her tongue. _It really isn't that bad. Sort of a clean—_

And that was when a small oil-rig fire erupted inside her mouth. "Augh!" she yelped, and tried to clap her hands to her face, ready to spit out the piece of torture.

"Keep her hands away from her mouth! Make sure she eats it all!" Miss Stephanie shouted, grabbing one of Aly's arms.

"Mmmmf! Haaaaaar!" Aly groaned, sticking her tongue to the roof of her mouth to try and rid it of the Pale Green Evil. That only made it worse – the paste spread and coated the entire inside of her mouth. It felt like she had been electrocuted. "Aaaaaar!"

"I thought we weren't allowed to torture students," Miss Christine said over Aly's agonized wails.

"It's not torture!" Miss Stephanie retorted. "It's a culinary experience!"

"Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!" Aly was trying to scrape the paste off on her teeth, to little effect.

"I think she disagrees," Miss Christine said dryly.

"All right, Haskell, you're done. That ought to keep you from speaking slander and making idle threats," Miss Stephanie said, hauling Aly to her feet.

"Ought to keep her from speaking at all," Miss Christine added, before snapping her fingers and yelling, "Sha-_zam_! Ooh, I'm on a roll today and it's not even past breakfast."

They slipped the hood back over Aly's head and spun her around before leading her out of the secret room. After a few minutes, the hood was whipped off, and Aly blinked at the comparatively bright light of dawn.

"Go have some breakfast, if you can," Miss Stephanie said, smiled grimly, and disappeared, leaving the student coughing and sputtering on the ground. Her eyes stung and watered, and she rubbed at them with grimy hands. Once she felt well enough to move, she stood up and wandered in the general direction of the cafeteria, unable to speak and thoroughly miserable.

It took her a while, but Aly finally stumbled into the cafeteria and made her way to Ray and Zahira's table. "Good gracious, what happened to you, sunshine?" the Arab-American girl asked, staring at her disheveled roommate.

"Ghha," Aly tried to say, looking at her equally messy friend. "Hha rrarah ha bleh?"

"Oh." Zahira looked down. Her pajamas were splattered with egg yolk. "Um…the minis take breakfast, too. Remind me not to get poached eggs again without a tranquilizer gun."

"Why are you talking funny? Did they pull out your tongue?" Ray asked, sounding morbidly fascinated.

Aly glared at him. "Hha," she said, sticking out her tongue at him. "Hi hahh hee' hy huhhnh."

"I don't speak gibberish," Ray said.

"It's not gibberish," Zahira said, grinning slowly. "She's speaking in _tongues_."

"Hhuh khu," Aly said, sitting down.

"Whoa! Language. Here, we saved a bagel for you," Zahira said, passing the food to her. Aly took a bite and immediately winced. Her tongue felt completely raw, like someone had been dragging it on a sidewalk. She finished chewing the bite and put the bagel down.

"Hi hee' huh hawaaa," Aly tried.

"You what?" Zahira turned to her and blinked. "Phwaw! Man! What are _you_ doing with wasabi-breath?" A pause, then, "Oh. _Oh_."

"What?" Ray asked.

"They gave her wasabi to keep her from talking," Zahira explained. "I did that to my brother once. Here, Aly. Have some water."

"Haah huu," Aly said gratefully, and drank deeply from the offered cup. It soothed the awful burning pain in her mouth, though not enough to let her talk comfortably.

Zahira smacked herself in the head, as if just remembering something. "Hey, we've got to get back to our room! That's where our schedules are!"

"And?" Ray asked, munching on a piece of toast.

"And they're totally crazy here, so class could start _any minute_!" Zahira finished. "I don't want to end up like Aly! No offense, Aly. But who knows what they do to latecomers here?"

"Ahh uh ahhah ohh," Aly tried to say fervently.

"That goes double for me," Ray said. "Or, like, whatever you said."

"Come on, let's go," Zahira said, getting up from her seat and going for the door as quickly as her cramping legs would allow her.

"Aw, crap," Ray said, and limped after her, Aly close behind.

At least today couldn't get any worse…right?

Somewhere, the Ironic Overpower laughed.

--

_Apologies to Mia and Kimmy for any character assassination that may have occurred. They and other new students will definitely be more involved in the next chapter! Which, by the way, is going to be a doozy. Hopefully it'll be up before the end of the month._

_And if you're wondering about the Pale Green Evil…Christine knows why. As does Stephanie._


	5. Sonovovich

Chapter 5: Sonovovitch

Aly barreled into her room, nearly tripping over Kimmy in the process. "Agghaa!"

"Abba?" Mia asked, looking over her schedule on the other side of the room.

"No, they kind of made it hard for Aly to speak," Zahira panted, catching up.

"How?" Kimmy asked quizzically, picking herself up off the ground, as well as her own schedule.

"You don't _want_ to know," Zahira said grimly and flopped down on the bed.

"You're sitting on your schedule," Kimmy informed her, and Zahira immediately rolled over and grabbed the (slightly crumpled) piece of paper.

"Lessee, lessee…what do we have…" She scanned the schedule. "Oh, hello. 'What's In A Name? 101. Lecturers: Various'." Zahira looked up. "Starts at 7:30…crikey, that's ten minutes from now!"

"Ehhis ih?" Aly asked.

"New Headquarters Building, room 232-A," Mia said, reading off of her own schedule. "Where are we?"

"The Old Headquarters Building," Kimmy said glumly.

Zahira stood up, clutching her schedule. "Come on, then, what are we waiting for? Let's shake a leg!" The four girls hoofed it out of their room, trying to find where they needed to be. There were no convenient signs this go-round, just the occasional floor plan. They all ducked out of the edifice, searching for the New Headquarters Building.

"Theh!" Aly said, pointing at a rather snazzy-looking structure with much glass.

"Yeah, that's got to be it," Zahira said as they changed course.

"Why? 'Cause of all the other students headed that way?" Mia asked, catching sight of several other roomie-groups.

"Well, yeah, and also 'cause it looks just like the opening of _American Dad!_," Zahira admitted. The four of them dashed into the building, and ran right over the seal. As Aly examined it, it differed somewhat from what she remembered the seal of the CIA looking like. There was a shield, all right, with that sixteen-pointed compass rose in it, but it was divided into four quadrants, each of which had what she assumed was an Academy pillar in it. Upper-left, a gun and bullets; upper-right, a computer; lower-left, a drawer of passports and cash; and lower-right, a fist with a cartoon 'Kapow!' bubble around it. Instead of that weird little braided thing above the shield, there was a pencil, and in lieu of the eagle's head was that of a jackal. Aly gulped. There was something written in Latin along the edge of the circle the crest lay in, as well as the Academy's name. _Scriptio est memoriae_, and _potestas, astutia, sollertia_. Whatever all that meant. She'd ask someone later – that is, when she didn't sound like Russian!Viggo Mortensen had been putting cigarettes out on her tongue, like in that movie.

"This way!" Mia said. She'd found a stairwell, and the four of them immediately ran and tromped up it. Once they were up on the second floor, it took them a mercifully short time to find the classroom. One by one, they slipped through the door. Thankfully, they were all there on time.

Aly slid into a seat next to a rather curvy college-age girl with red hair. Crikey, was everyone here _older_ than her? "Hi," she said. At least it was possible for her to say _that_ word without sounding like a total weirdo.

"Hey," the red-haired young woman said. "Do you know what this class is about?"

"Ih's…Whah's Ih Ah 'Aim, I 'hink," Aly mumbled. She realized she hadn't changed out of her pajamas since she'd gotten here.

"What?"

Zahira came to the rescue. "She got on the wrong side of the staff this morning. They made it hard for her to talk. She says it's What's In A Name. I'm not sure what it's about either." The Bostonian grinned and tweaked the bill of her Red Sox cap down. "I'm Zahira."

"Rebecca," the redhead said.

"Ahy. Haice hu hee' hu."

"She's Aly," Zahira translated. "And she says it's nice to meet you."

This could definitely get old, Aly realized, and took out a piece of paper to write on if she had anything to ask. "So, when's it supposed to start?" Zahira asked, glancing around the lecture hall.

"Looks like right about now," Rebecca said, as two people trooped into the front of the room, presumably from an office at the bottom of the lecture hall.

"Yay," Aly said with effort. She noticed that Zahira had already sat up a little straighter – she must have been interested in whoever was teaching today. Aly squinted, but she didn't recognize the two people, one of whom was carrying a cane and limping. Neither of them looked like they came from the movies. Beside her, Rebecca chuckled a little bit.

"Looks like we're off to a good start," she said, nodding sagely. Noticing Aly's blank look, she dropped her voice and said, "They're from the books – it's Alex—"

But before she could finish, there was a loud rapping noise. The limping guy had banged his cane on the desk, shaking the boombox on it. Both of them looked ancient to Aly – why, they must have been at least fifty-five. Who was that old at all in spy stuff, except Dame Judi Dench? "All right, pay attention, students," he said, putting a certain twist on _students_ that meant that he at least thought this was funny. The class quieted down very quickly.

The other man, salt-and-pepper-haired and somewhat stockier than his slender companion, smiled a little. "Allow us to welcome you to FAIL," he said. He had a pronounced Russian accent, Aly noticed. The Cold War was _so_ last century already. "And particularly, this class: What's In A Name."

"Now, we know you can't all be _perfect_," the limping man drawled, moving from behind the table at the front of the class. Aly stared – _what's up with his _foot_?!_ – because the man's right foot was obviously a prosthesis, and not of a recent vintage, either. "But you're going to have to get a better grip on spelling, at least. So we thought we'd start you off with a specific _kind_ of name first."

"Most of you cannot even spell the simplest of names, proof that your American public education system is inferior—"

"Oh, for God's _sake_, Kruppie, give it a rest," the slender guy sighed. "Anyway. I'm Alex Conklin – " Aly gulped involuntarily; so _this_ was the book-version of that jerkface – "and this propaganda-spewing Soviet here is Dimitri Krupkin." Zahira's hand had shot straight up when Conklin had introduced himself. The instructor raised an eyebrow and pointed at her. "Go ahead."

"Except that's not your name, is it, sir?" she asked him, though without accusation – just a statement of fact. "Mr. Aleksei Nikolae Konsolikov. Though I must note that your middle name seems to lack a patronymic ending."

Conklin and Krupkin looked at each other, then Conklin looked back at her and smiled a little. "Pretty astute. Looks like someone read the books."

"Yes, sir," Zahira replied, practically beaming with pride.

"Okay, I'm going to take a wild guess here and say you're…" Conklin glanced down at the table, upon which was presumably a roster of some sort. "Hakim, Zahira F.?"

"That's me!" she said, beaming. "How'd you know?"

"We have Ways," Krupkin said, smirking. Aly could see that Zee nearly fell out of her chair.

"_Ways!_" she mouthed to Aly, clearly floored. Rebecca chuckled. Mia rolled her eyes. Aly was just confused, but decided to roll with it.

"Anyway," Conklin said, leaning on his cane. "Today's lesson is about Russian names in particular. Of course, there are more Russian characters in the books than in the movies – ourselves included. But that still shouldn't preclude you all from knowing the basics of how Russian names _work_."

"You won't have to spell anything today, but consider this an introduction to the class," Krupkin added. "Try to enjoy it."

"God knows we will." Conklin grinned. "Kruppie, would you do the honors?"

"I'd be glad to, Aleksei." He tapped the play button on the boombox, and a light steady ch-ch-chch-ch percussion beat began.

"You see," Conklin began, "Russian names are a kind of a game."

"There's a first and a last and a middle name," Krupkin said, keeping the beat.

"Giving the first name is the mama's chore…"

"Like Boris, Alexander, or Fyodor."

The door swung open suddenly. "The last name comes from the family…" David Webb said, jogging down to join the two at the front.

"Like Pushkin, Basilov, or Porfiry," Krupkin elaborated.

Conklin grinned. "With the middle name, now here comes the fun: the papa gives his first name to the son!"

"He then adds an '-ovich' or a '-yevich' to the end," Krupkin said.

Webb nodded. "Here's an example so you comprehend."

"The papa's name is Sonov," Conklin said, "now here's the switch:"

"The kid's middle name is Sonovovich!"

All three joined together for the final verse: "Yes, the kid's middle name is Sonovovich!" The recorded drums became a comedy riff and stopped. The three professors engaged each other in an elaborate system of high-fives.

Zahira was practically pissing herself with laughter – she'd fallen off her chair. Aly was trying to keep it in, and failing. Mia had bitten her lip, trying not to grin. It wasn't working.

Since everybody was laughing, they didn't notice that the professors had started looking around the classroom in a predatory way. "Mattesych!" Conklin roared, pronouncing the name 'matt-uh-sick'. An auburn-haired girl in her mid-twenties froze, looking terrified. "If your father's name was Ivan, what would your middle name be?"

"Uh…" she stammered. "Iv-Ivanovich?"

"_Wrong!_" Conklin shouted gleefully. Aly revised her opinion of him closer to 'jerkface' than it had been. "You're a girl – it would be 'Ivanova'!"

"But that wasn't in the song," a teenage girl across the room said.

"Just because it wasn't in the song doesn't mean you shouldn't know it," Webb said, his slight smile inspiring far more fear than it should have, coming from a fifty-year-old professor of Oriental Studies as it did.

"Really, Aleksei, your American public education system…" Krupkin shook his head.

"Yeah, it is a little lacking, isn't it, Dimitri?" Webb asked, leaning against the table.

"That was depressing, and speaking as someone who had his foot blown off by a land mine, I mean that," Conklin said, shaking his head. "All right, class dismissed. As homework, I want you all to translate your names into Russian. No points will be awarded if you use the Roman alphabet. We require Cyrillic."

A groan arose from the class. "'hohally hah hair," Aly muttered.

"Of course it's fair, Haskell," Conklin said, smirking. Aly looked horrified that he'd not only heard but understood her. "And you're lucky I don't make _your_ punishment in particular worse, given how you've treated my counterpart."

Aly gulped.

"Get out of here, go on. If I'm not mistaken, you have another required class in…" Conklin made a big show of looking at his watch. "Six minutes."

"And it's on the other side of campus!" Krupkin said, far too much glee in his voice for a character nobody even cared about, Aly thought.

"_Shit!_" Zahira shouted, having picked herself off the floor, and there was a mad scramble for the door. It took about one minute for the packed lecture hall to clear entirely.

Once the students were gone, Webb gave his friend a sidelong glance. "There's no required class at Old Headquarters today."

"Well, what do you know?" the old spook said with feigned innocence. "I guess I _was_ mistaken."

"You're a real Sonovovich, I hope you know."

----

_Hi all! No, I'm not dead. Just been busy, and I lost the file for this, but I found it, so update! Ah, the stuff I've been up to…you wouldn't believe me. Suffice it to say I'll be making much more of an effort to post from now on - for this and other fanfics._

_Also, points if anyone can discover the original source of the name song. Because it's just so much win I had to share._


	6. Wakey wakey!

Chapter 6: Wakey wakey

A few days went by, which Aly practically couldn't believe. The classes were brutal – there was hardly any free time, and barely a day went by without five or more Jackal Pack Attacks, as Zahira had named them. Aly preferred to think of the mini-Jackals as radar-eared, quadripedal piranhas, a perception that was not improved by one of them eating all the chicken out of her Caesar salad and another taking her waffle at breakfast.

Of course, Conklin was as good as his word – every morning at 4:30 ("the ass-crack of dawn", as Zahira called it) the students were awakened by a different loud and impossibly irritating noise. Aly would have thought that they'd run out after a while, but no. Today, it had been an air raid siren. Then they had to find their Academy-issued gym uniforms; Zahira had taken to sleeping in hers, perhaps trying to make a good impression on the sadistic CIA officer. Then, like clockwork, they had to dash out to be present at Conklin's starting location by 4:40.

And Alexander Conklin did not take kindly to latecomers. One morning Mia had been brushing her hair and arrived to the PT grounds two minutes late. Conklin set her an extra lap of the campus – with Hirsh and Voson the mini-Jackals following to make sure she didn't slack off.

The morning routine had progressed from a simple run, however. Now they were called upon to stretch and do other exercises beforehand; not a bad idea, all things considered. An older man (why was everyone from the books so _old_, Aly wondered, though not aloud, because she rather liked her limbs), whom Rebecca and Zahira had separately identified as one Admiral Peter Holland, director of the CIA and Vietnam veteran, oversaw their morning PT beginning from the third day.

"How many of you can do one push-up?" Holland had asked the amassed students the first morning he attended. Most of the students, Aly included, raised their hands. "Five?" A few hands went down, but not many. "Ten?" More hands went down. "How about twenty?" Aly's hand practically shot downwards, and Zahira folded her arms crossly.

"Nineteen," she hissed to Aly, "nineteen I can do, but last gym class I had my arms gave out on the twentieth."

"Sucks," Aly murmured back. She had only ever made it to twelve.

"Thirty?" Holland asked. There weren't very many hands up now. "Right. How about fifty? Fifty push-ups in two minutes?" Only about five hands remained, sticking up in the air defiantly. Holland laughed a little. "Great. How's about you five lambs come on up front here and give us a demonstration?"

The students who'd been foolish enough to 'volunteer' all groaned and shuffled up to the front. "Come on, _move_ it, people!" Holland shouted at them in true parade-ground fashion. They smartened up considerably. Aly peered over the heads of her classmates to look at the five unlucky students as they got down on the ground. Four of them were male. One of them was Ray.

Almost immediately Holland started shouting at them. "Is _that_ what you call a push-up? Looks more to me like you're doing the Worm!" He glanced at Conklin. "You're not kidding; they _do_ need work."

"This is why I brought you in," Conklin had said, tweaking the bill of his Mets cap as he watched the five students attempting to do fifty push-ups in two minutes. "I think they've had it easy enough, don't you?"

"Definitely." Holland raised his voice so all the students could hear. "That is _not_ a push-up!"

"It isn't?" Ray asked, straightening his arms with a little difficulty.

"No, Winter. It isn't."

"But my gym teacher said—"

"In case it isn't obvious, I'm not your gym teacher. Allow us to demonstrate proper form. Conklin, if you would…"

"Certainly." The students watched while Conklin got into the starting position, hands firmly planted on the ground beneath his shoulders, back and legs straight.

"One, two, three." Holland said this in cadence; there was a rhythm to it.

At "One," Conklin had dropped to the ground, elbows bent, his chest not quite touching the ground.

At "Two," Conklin had returned to the starting position.

At "Three," Conklin had gotten back close to the ground. He pushed himself back up once more and shouted "One!"

"One, two, three," Holland intoned again.

"Two!"

"One, two, three."

"Three!"

Zahira was gazing at the Treadstone chief with a look that was awfully close to 'I-am-going-to-jump-your-bones-the-first-chance-I-get-and-this-only-makes-me-want-you-more'. Aly nudged her, but she didn't notice. _Ew. How can she _like_ him? Especially when there are younger, hotter guys around. Like Bourne._

"That'll be enough, thank you, Conklin," Holland said. "Now students, _that_ is how you do push-ups."

"But that was, like, two push-ups per count!" Ray wailed.

"That's how it's done in the Army, that's how it's done here. And a week's detention for backtalking the staff," Conklin said.

"But this isn't the Army," Ray said, not knowing when to quit.

Conklin looked at him, and smiled. It was scary. "You're right," he said. "It's worse. Worse for you, at least. Two weeks' detention."

Ray groaned, but didn't say anything more.

"Now get back to your squads, all of you." The entire school had been organized into platoons for PT, based on which floor they were rooming in. Squads within platoons were composed of eight – two rooms put together. Ray's squad was directly in front of Aly and Zahira's, and as he slunk back to his position Aly could see his face was bright red, the color going right up to his ears.

After they had all done five push-ups to Holland's satisfaction (which took quite a while, as many of the girls shrieked about breaking nails), Conklin set them all running around the campus in company formation. The mini-Jackals followed, as this was also their morning exercise. Aly wondered where the suits were. She didn't really see them that much. Maybe that was the point.

It was almost 7:00 in the morning by the time they had all finished the run and were allowed to go to breakfast. Since classes began at 7:30 daily ("There is no God," Zahira had groaned), the students had to eat fast and then run to change if they didn't want to go to class in dirty, smelly gym clothes. Mercifully, Aly managed to scarf most of her ham and cheese omelet before the minis got around to her. Zahira ended up stabbing one of them with a fork, which had not ended well for her (being pushed to the ground by something angry and cat-sized was likely to result in the loss of food _and_ dignity).

But things improved. As the days passed, the time they arrived at the cafeteria grew earlier, even though they had no less to do. They had gotten up to 6:55 after a week.

This obviously meant that things were too easy. The routine changed.

The following Monday, the students were awakened by yet another alarm. Today it was the screeching and chattering of a thousand capuchin monkeys. Aly was only too glad to roll out of bed and throw a pair of sneakers on. The noise was too irritating to bear for any length of time.

There were signs up again. That alone was enough to make Aly wary. _They're moving PT?_ Damn, and she'd just gotten used to the other location. The stampede bore her and her roommates along, following the arrows to today's PT grounds. They left the building and followed a path through the forest. Mia stumbled in the woods, tripping over a large stick which Aly only barely managed to avoid.

A gasp went up from the front ranks, and there were many instances of people crashing into other people's backs again, uncomfortably recalling the first day of PT. Grumbling, Aly tried to peer over the amassed ranks – then gawped.

They were at the bank of the Potomac River. The two self-appointed PT supervisors were sitting in separate motorboats, both of which were lashed to a pier. "Hello there, students," Conklin said, seeming not unlike a piranha this morning.

"Damn," Zahira muttered, looking disappointed.

"What?" Aly asked.

"He's not in swim trunks."

"Oh, ew."

"Hey, nothing wrong with hoping for a free show."

"You have _problems_," Aly mumbled, returning her attention to the instructors.

"Since you seem to be adjusting rather nicely to the morning routine, we figured we'd mix things up a little," Holland said.

"This morning, instead of a run, there's going to be something a little different," Conklin said. "You're going to swim across the Potomac to the Maryland side, and then swim back."

The students were dead silent. Conklin gave them a death glare, which Aly was horrified to find was surprisingly effective. "Oh, relax. We picked a narrow point – it can't be more than four hundred meters across. That's not even a full kilometer when you add up both sides. It's barely half a mile."

"Now don't panic," Holland said, because most of the students seemed to be trending towards doing just that. "There are lane ropes and buoys spaced throughout the course. If for whatever reason you can't keep swimming – if you freeze up, or if you get a cramp in your legs – just make your way to a buoy and you'll be picked up. The two of us will also be patrolling the lanes to make sure nothing goes too terribly amiss. There'll be towels for you when you make it all the way back, guarded by Nikki and Black briar." The two minis sat on either side of the carts full of towels, grinning jackalish grins. "And they can smell if you made it to the other side or not."

"Remember, you can't go back in for breakfast until _everybody _completes the course, so don't slack off," Conklin warned them. "The faster everyone finishes, the better off you all are. And I'd recommend you all take off your shoes, they'll only weight you down." As the students busied themselves removing their shoes and socks, he and Holland cast off from the dock and motored out about fifty meters. When the students were mostly upright again, Conklin raised the dreaded airhorn. "When this goes off, I expect to see all of you piling into the water." After a few seconds, he pressed the button. The blast was deafening even at that distance, and the students surged forwards into the Potomac.

"Eeew, Potomac," Zahira said as they shuffled forwards. "Pretty sure that it's Powhatan for 'garbage dump'."

Aly was a little curious as to why she had such disdain for the river, but all questions were banished from her mind as soon as feet touched water. "Fancy _Christ_, that's cold!" she shouted, darting backwards a little. The sun was beginning to think about rising, but the water remained icy. Of course they had planned it that way; why wouldn't they have? And at least it really went towards waking them up more. Aly couldn't go back to sleep now if she tried.

"And awaaaay we go," she muttered, and forced herself to wade in. The cold water eventually numbed her arms and legs, and she flailed herself into deeper water. Zahira, however, seemed to be doing just fine aside from the initial disgust. "H-how are you doing that?" she asked her roommate, who was already a few body-lengths in front of her.

Zahira turned back around. "I'm on swim t-team this year at m-my school. C-c'mon, it's not so b-bad once you get used to it. Don't flail like that."

"I h-h-hate water!" Aly half-shouted.

"You're using energy unnecessarily. Stay with me, I'll show you." Zahira helped her calm down and showed her exactly how to move. "You g-gotta keep kicking your legs. You know how to tread water?"

"A l-little," Aly said.

"Okay. We'll go together. Your arms tired?" Aly nodded, her teeth chattering. "Yeah, mine too. I guess it's the c-cold. Let's swim to that buoy and have a rest." For several of the other students had drifted over to the buoys and were clinging to them in sheer desperation.

It was slow going, but the two of them finally made it to the nearest buoy. "Ooh, look," Zahira said, pointing to the Maryland side of the river. "We're halfway there! Maybe a little more than half, actually."

"Wh-which means a quarter of the way in total," Aly said, hugging the buoy and miserably cold.

A skinny teenage girl swam up to their buoy. "C-can I join you guys?"

"S-sure, room enough for one more," Zahira said.

The girl grasped the buoy, laughing a little in the cold. "Th-this is my p-problem, not m-much insulation against the cold like this. I'm Jicky."

"I'm Zahira, and this is Aly," Zahira said. Aly was grateful she'd done the introductions, since her jaw seemed to be frozen shut.

"Mmmmhi," she managed to get out.

"N-nice to meet you!" Jicky said. "I can't believe they're m-making us swim all th-this."

"Eh, it's only l-like sixteen laps of an Olympic p-pool," Zahira said, trying to sound nonchalant.

Aly managed to unstuck her jaw. "Only?"

The sound of an outboard motor puttered closer, and the girls went quiet as Conklin's boat approached. "Nice to see you ladies having a friendly chat. Does talking preclude you three from swimming?"

"N-n-no, Mr. Conklin sir," Zahira said, trying to grin at him and looking rather like a deranged, waterlogged badger. "Just t-taking a rest."

"So none of you are injured?"

"N-not as such," Jicky piped up.

"So all of you can still swim." As he adjusted his Mets cap, it was clear that what he'd said was a statement rather than a question.

"Y…yeah," Jicky said.

"Right. Get on with it or the minis'll have your breakfast," Conklin said, and powered up the engine again, leaving the three of them in his wake – literally. The wave created by the motor swamped the trio, making them colder, wetter, and more miserable than they had been before.

"N-nothing for it, lessgo," Zahira said after they were sure he was far enough away, and the three of them set out for the Maryland side of the river, where two or three students were already trying to regain their breath before setting out on the way back.

Hell of a wake-up call.

* * *

_Yes, that was a pun right up there. Who's good at updating on time? Not me! Thanks for sticking with it, though. College is fun, but it's a lot more difficult and time-consuming than I'd thought! I promise there's going to be more hilarity and action in the upcoming chapters; I have a system all planned out. And the push-up formula is actually how the Army does push-ups. (I know from experience.)_

_Applications are still open if anyone wants to try their luck – just send in the enrolment form from chapter one to bourneofu (at) gmail (dot) com._


End file.
